Learning to Live, Living to Learn
by Sereq ieh Dashret
Summary: In a bid to save Arda's future, Orome of the Valar sends Smaug, last of the Fire-Drakes, on a quest to free himself from the corruption the Dark Lords have instilled in his race and find out what it truly means to be a dragon. Germany, 1809, a bunch of dragons from Davout's army rescue an injured stray. The war of the 5th Coalition is approaching, and Smaug is in at the deep end.


**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original The Hobbit or Temeraire characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.**

So, this is one of the reasons why it took me so long to update Breaking the Chains and CIS Commandos.  
I started reading Hobbit fanfictions, I couldn't help myself. The Hobbit was one of my first proper fantasy books when I was 12 or 13, and I adored Smaug, even if he was a cruel bastard. Benedict Cumberbatch's voice was just the icing on the cake. I just love this character and I wanted to play with him a bit.

To be honest I love dragons in general, so I thought, why not mixing together a lot of dragons from compatible canons? This came out.  
It will be a story of growth, learning and redemption, and a crossover between the Hobbit and the Temeraire series. I am not planning to use the main characters from the Temeraire cast very extensively, and I am planning to introduce my own OCs, but the setting will be the alternate Naopleonic campaigns, and more precisely the 1809 campaigns in Austria, at least to start with. Just to add a bit more crack, there will be some Les Miserables characters thrown in for good measure.

I know that in the movie they made Smaug into some sort of vyvern, like the dragons from ASOIAF. Ait makes more sense from an anatomical PoV and I find the design extremely cool, but Smaug had 4 legs on the cover of my copy of the Hobbit, and this is how I will always envision him. So, for the sake of the argument, and for coherence reasons, let's imagine that he looks like he does in the movie but with four legs. In the book he is also much smaller than in the movies, and once again, I'm going with the book version so that he can fit better in the Temeraire canon.

Also, the most hardcore fans among you will know that in the original book it is stated that Smaug is one of the last Fire-Drakes, but not _the_ last in absolute. I am changing things a bit for drama, here, to add a bit of depth to the character.

Warning: a bit of bad language. and not-exactly-but-nearly character death.  
SPOILERS from the upcoming Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies movie (and from the last bits of the book).

Flame all you want, I'm fireproof.

* * *

The Black Arrow flew those last few meters with the inexorability of Fate itself, swift as divine retribution.  
As he turned in the air, readying himself for one more strafing pass over the already flaming town, Smaug saw it fly towards him, heard it whistle its deadly tune in the wind, but it was already too late.  
Unable to dodge, he watched in horror as it headed straight and true for the place where his missing scale should have been, just over his heart.  
In that moment, he recognized his death catching up with him, and, for the first time in his long life, he knew despair.

The arrow impacted against his chest with tremendous force, burying itself in his unprotected flesh. It tore through skin and muscle, and into his lungs, and before its momentum was completely dissipated, its cruel iron tip managed to pierce the wall of the dragon's heart.  
Smaug roared and contorted mid-air in agony, plummeting as he lost control over his body for a long moment.  
The pain was excruciating, all-consuming. It burned deep inside him, radiating into his whole body, and took possession of his mind, until there was nothing left of him beyond it, until he _was_ the pain.  
Something primal deep inside his mind, however, felt the currents of air whistling against his crumpled wings, felt gravity pulling at his unresisting body, and realized that he was falling. With an enormous effort of will, the dragon managed to unfurl his wings once more, screaming in pain as the movement tore at his wound. He felt the muscles in his chest rend and push the arrow ever deeper, but somehow managed to right himself in the air and catch the wind once more.  
His breath gurgled in his lungs and he could taste his own blood at the back of his mouth. But he was a stubborn beast, and even as part of him realized that this was it, that there was nothing he could do, he refused to go down like that. If he could just reach the mountains beyond the Lake, and find somewhere to hide and rest, he would be fine, his magic would heal him in time. He only had to hold out.

"Sweet Vala, that puny human with his pathetic Wind-Lance... I'll kill his entire bloodline for this..." he thought, trying to cheer himself up with the anticipation of the revenge he would enact as soon as he was back to health, but his mind was clouding over with the pain and the sheer effort of drawing breath. He could feel his fire dimming and dwindling as his body shut down, uselessly trying to conserve energy to survive. He was weakening fast, his life draining from him with each beat of his wounded heart.  
Smaug realized he was losing altitude, too weak already to even keep his body straight into gliding position.  
He cast a last look at the mountains beyond, coloured silver and pink by the first rays of the sun. He would never get there.  
This was the last dawn he would ever see, the last time he would ever fly.  
In that moment, he regretted the decades he had spent sleeping, half-buried within his hoard under the Mountain. Decades spent without gazing upon stars or dawn, years upon years wasted without feeling the wind in his wings...

The dark waters of the lake approached fast, deep and cold and merciless, but the shore was close, and he would be damned if he died in the water.  
"I am fire..." he thought, readying himself for one last effort.  
Smaug gritted his teeth and swallowed a scream as he beat his wings once more, trying to gain enough altitude to be able to glide to dry land.  
His chest spasmed painfully, and his vision blacked completely for an instant.

When he came to, he was already crashing into a large, sturdy pier some tens of meters from his target.

The wood splintered under the impact, sending his hind quarters splashing into the frigid waters and jarring his wound. The pain was so great that he lost control of his body once more and his purchase on the remains of the structure slipped.

Smaug found himself completely submerged for a moment, water pressing down upon him, invading his mouth and nostrils. Panicking, he managed to break the surface and grab one of the wooden stilts of the pier to support himself as he tried vainly to find purchase in the muddy, soft bed of the lake and push himself up and out of the water. The sediments offered no solid support, but sucked his paws in, sticky as tar, and his wet wings dragged him down with their weight and bulk.  
Keeping his head above the water was rapidly becoming an impossible effort. The cold and the dark beckoned him, and resisting to their call was almost impossible. His vision tunneled and his muscles cramped with the cold.  
With every movement, with every desperate attempt at saving himself, the arrow penetrated deeper into the wall of his heart.  
With every frantic heartbeat, his blood spilled down his chest into the water of the lake and flooded his lungs.  
With every passing second his desperate fight became more futile.

Terrified beyond reason, he pushed himself into one last effort, taking one fore-paw off the stilt and extending his body, scrabbling for purchase on something more solid.  
The stilt splintered under the strain, just as his talons had managed to sink into the wooden planks of the remaining section of the pier.  
Smaug sank, claws gouging out splinters of wood from the structure. The dark waters closed over his head once more, and this time, he didn't have any strength left. His consciousness was fading fast, but not fast enough that he couldn't feel the oppression of the water all around him, and shiver with the cold seeping into him. The pain dulled a fraction, allowing him some more coherent thoughts.

He looked back at his life, and to his own utter surprise, he found it lacking.  
He had had his hoard, and dominion over the Lonely Mountain. All the gold that his heart could desire, and yet there had always been a part of him that had felt unsatisfied, hollow. His realm had been nothing but a desert, with no other sentient to exercise his dominion over, and even the company of his own kind had been denied to him.  
There were no more Fire-Drakes on Arda.  
He would have never had a mate, nor a clutch of young to raise.  
He was the last of his race, the last of Ancalagon's powerful blood, and no one would mourn him after his death.  
Rejoice, yes, that the dwarves and the lake-men would do, and whisper his story as a cautionary tale of the what their puny minds conceptualized as greed and arrogance, but no one would narrate his mighty deeds to their young.  
No hatchling would dream of one day becoming like him, as he had dreamed of Ancalagon and Glaurung, of the battles they fought, and the glory they conquered.  
Compared to that, his deeds, of which he had been so proud, seemed petty. He had tormented unwary civilians, unprepared for his coming, and then lazed around in a cave, denying himself even the joy of flight to better stand guard over his treasure.  
He had never seen a real battle, with true soldiers, prepared to fight him. He had never seen the skies go black with arrows by the score, never heard the din of battle-cries and curses, never felt that he was doing something truly glorious and momentous. He had been brought low by a ragtag band of exile dwarves and a peasant. How degrading...  
A fitting death for the last of a decaying race.

His lungs burned for air, and his chest heaved and trembled with the impulse to draw it in.  
Until then, he had been trying to resist it, to fight back against his body and stave death off for a moment more, but what was the point now? Eventually, he would let go, his instincts would overrule him, so why not let go voluntarily?  
Why not take control of what was left and go out with some dignity?  
Smaug forced himself to calm down, to accept the inevitable, and let himself draw breath, taking in his own death.  
The water burned and pressed into his lungs, showing him another height of agony, but soon the cold had pervaded him so deeply that he couldn't feel anything anymore. Not the pain of the wound in his chest, not the pressure of the water around him and inside him.  
Everything was nothing.

"So this is it. Death. The final threshold." he managed to think, feeling strangely detached.  
He imagined that maybe he should have been angry about his own death, but he found that the most he could muster was a deep regret for the things he had not managed to do in his life: for the mate he had never had, and the hatchlings to whom he had never taught how to hunt, for the skies through which he had never soared, and the places he had never seen.  
In that moment, as his consciousness was dissolving into the cold, dark nothingness, his massive, splendid hoard of gold seemed like nothing to him, and he would have gladly given it all away, down to the last copper coin, if he could just have had another occasion to live his life more fully, if he could have not been the last, if he could have been spared that terrible loneliness and meaninglessness.

_"Is this truly what you want, Smaug the Golden?" _a voice asked, resonating not in his dying ears, but deep in his soul.  
"Eh?! Who are you?!" Smaug asked warily, trying to look around and identify the source of that voice.  
Around him, however, there was just velvety darkness and he was suspended in it, weightless and disincarnated. The pain had faded completely, along with any other sensation. There was nothing but him and the voice.

_"I am Oromë of the Valar, he who is in the hunt and the battle." _the voice replied, reverberating from all around him.  
"A Vala? - Smaug repeated - Whatever one of the Bright Ones wants from me? Have you come to drag me into the Void for my ancestors' sins?" he asked, finding that his reserves of sarcasm were still intact.  
"I was never a minion of the Dark Lords. I was my own creature, and servant of no one. - he added defiantly - If I have to go into the Void, let it be for my own actions."  
_"And they would be enough for that._ \- Oromë commented dryly - _But that is not the reason why I am here."_  
"No? And then what it is?" Smaug asked, letting his irritation float into his words. Couldn't he even die in peace?  
_"You are the last of the Fire-Drakes. Your race is dying with you..."_ Oromë resumed, and Smaug felt his anger bloom like a flower in that void.  
"I know that better than anyone else! - he spat - If you cared about my kin, you should have stopped the elves, when they shot our young out of the sky, or the dwarves, when they killed the hatchlings still in their nests and destroyed every egg that they could lay their hands on! Ever since the First Age, no Fire-Drakes have allied themselves with the Dark Lords! And yet they kept on killing us into extinction!" he shouted, venting his rage at the Vala. What was the worse that could happen to him? He was already dead, and he vowed to himself that he would face the Void with courage, if that was to be his fate.  
_"I know. And maybe I should have, but my council was overruled. - _Oromë replied and Smaug thought he could detect a hint of weariness and regret into the Vala's voice - _My brethren thought your race was too tainted by Morgoth's manipulations to be saved, but I cannot let you die without doing anything about it."_  
"And why not? - Smaug snarled - I guess your precious Free People would just say good riddance! Why would you save one of the races created by Morgoth?" he asked bitterly.  
_"Because you were not. "_ Oromë replied.  
"I... We... What?!" Smaug stammered, shaken and confused.  
_"Your race was not created by Morgoth. - _the Vala explained calmly - _The Dark One could never create, only pervert what others had made for his own dark purposes. Like he made the Werewolves from the Celestial Hounds, and the Orcs from the Elves, the first Fire-Drakes were made by him from something he had not created himself."_  
Smaug felt as if he had become astonishment itself.  
"Then who? Who created us?" he asked.  
_"Eru Iluvatar himself._ \- Oromë replied - _You were in his design since the beginning, a theme of power and freedom woven into the song that created Arda, sharing into the Undying Flame like Elves and Men. You were to be the perfect hunters, the protectors of Arda, fierce, and noble and wise. I sang you into being, like Manwë sang the Great Eagles and Yavanna sang the Ents. You were mine to protect and to guide, and I roamed far and wide to search for the first few of you, when the world was young."_ the Vala narrated, his voice tinged with anger and sorrow so profound that it hurt to hear it.  
"But Morgoth found them first." Smaug added softly.  
_"Yes. He stole them, and corrupted them, in body, and most of all in spirit, making them greedy, and arrogant and cruel, making them into instruments of terror and oppression. When Glaurung first emerged from Angband, I wept at seeing the creatures I had given up for lost so unrecognizably corrupted._ \- Oromë continued wearily - _In time_, _I saw that his corruption faded from your forms, making you once again beautiful and terrible to behold, like I had envisioned, but not from your souls. Even after his fall, you remained... tainted." _  
"I see... Well, sorry for not living up to your standards, Lord Vala. - Smaug retorted, putting all his sarcasm into his words - What exactly were we supposed to do? To become do-gooders even if your precious Free People hunted and killed us? And without any guidance? I don't recall hearing that you sent one of your Maiar to my people, to bring them back to the fold. You didn't care, back then. What makes you care now? What is it that you want from us?" he asked, sensing that there was an ulterior motive under the Vala's lofty assertions.

There was a long pause, then Smaug thought he had perceived a sigh, and knew that he had hit the mark. The knowledge made him both smug and sad at the same time. If he had not wanted something from him, the Vala wouldn't have cared about the Fire-Drakes any more than he had at the end of the First Age.  
_"The Darkness is returning. _\- Oromë said _\- Sauron is regaining strength, and plots in secret the downfall of Arda. In a century or two, he will be ready to strike. He will enslave the whole of Arda, and bring it to ruin."_  
"Unlikely. - Smaug scoffed - The Free People have beaten him several times already. They will do it again."  
_"They did. When there was still a King in Gondor and the Elven High King commanded mighty armies. _\- Oromë conceded - _But there are no Kings now. The once-mighty Noldor are in decline, as are the Dwarves. Also thanks to you, I should say... Arda may fall, and even if it does not, the war will exhaust it. The Elves will be driven off to Valinor, the Dwarves will slowly die off, and the mighty reigns of the Humans will be reduced to petty fiefdoms. Magic will fade from the world, and all that was great and wild and glorious, will become petty and tame. Let me show you..."_ he said.

The darkness parted, and Smaug saw.

The sky was dark with smoke and ash, not from a blaze, but from dirty, sooty workshops, churning crude weapons and armour at incredible rates. The hills were stripped bare of trees, mountains torn apart in search of iron ore. The earth itself turned sickly with the fumes and the slag. The grass became yellow and brittle, the animals were stunted and starving.  
And then he saw the armies, foul masses of orcs and other putrid creatures, followed by the Humans of Rhûn and Harad that Sauron had taken in bondage. They swept over the reigns of the humans, the mountains of the dwarves, and the forests of the elves, killing all who resisted and enslaving all who yielded, until the entire world was cast in darkness, grey, and broken and joyless, until the dominion of Sauron smothered all, suffocating all life by degrees.

Even though he reveled in destruction, even if he killed as he pleased, when he pleased, Smaug couldn't help but feel horrified at what he saw, at the brokenness and lifelessness of those who were left, at the destruction of so many beautiful things.  
Why did Sauron want Arda, if he didn't mean to look after it? Many things could be said about dragons, but they did look after their possessions, they made sure that they were properly cared for, and that they looked the best.

The vision shifted, and he could see the sun again.  
The grass grew lush and green on the tumuli of the fallen warriors. Cities fallen in ruin were hastily reconstructed, so that people could eke out a living in the cramped shanties that were all they could afford to build.  
The elves all sailed into the West, some sooner, some trying to delay the inevitable to the last possible moment, and magic departed from the world with them.  
Heroes slowly faded, until the last living being who had ever fought the Darkness was no more, and then their stories began to die, until with time no one believed that there ever was a Dark Lord in Mordor, dwarves in the mountains, or elves in the forest, until no one believed that dragons had actually soared through the skies.  
All that the heroes had fought for didn't mean anything anymore to their descendants, and they lived with their heads down on their tills or on their money, unable to see what little magic was left in the world, unable to dream... Arda would eventually prosper again, but would be forever left callous and soulless.  
Smaug realised that the latter was supposed to be the good ending, but, even so, it was dismal and terrible. He wanted to say something, to protest against that fate, but his tongue was frozen in dismay. He was glad he wouldn't see that, and gladder still that he had not inflicted that fate to any son or daughter of his.

"It is... I can't even express how terrible that is." the dragon managed to say.  
_"Yes, but it need not come into being. _\- Oromë declared -_Fate can be changed. Your race can help me change it." _he said, some hope creeping into his tone.  
"But how? - Smaug asked, feeling a strange desire to do something gnaw at his numbness - I am the last and I am dying. And I am still... tainted." he objected.  
That mad greed for gold and treasure, that arrogant indifference for anything apart his own wishes... That must be the taint, what had imprisoned him out of his own volition into the Mountain, when he could have sought out adventures all over Arda.  
He had started his quest in search of meaning, of a purpose, of a last spark of glory for his race. He could have been much more than a symbol of greed. He could have done much more than just sleeping and lazing around on a hoard of gold.  
He should have.  
He wished he had, now.

Feeling a deep shame rise in him, Smaug cursed the Dark Lords for sowing those flaws into the hearts of his race, and cursed himself for not being strong enough to rise above them.  
He had always thought that he was free and didn't answer to any lord, but in truth he had been dancing at the tune of dead and defeated demons.  
Unable to control himself, he let out a mournful, keening wail, lamenting his folly and the ruin of his entire race, no, of the whole Arda, the loss of freedom and magic and dreams.

_"That can be helped." _Oromë declared.  
"Will you take it away from me?" Smaug asked, feeling a trickle of hope filter through his thoughts.  
_"That I can't. _\- the Vala replied - _You will have to do it yourself. I will save your life, and send you to a place where you can find the guidance you need, where you can find what your true purpose is." he proposed._  
"What place is that?" Smaug asked eagerly, feeling his whole being thrum in excitement.  
Could he truly fix himself, fix his whole race and help this strange Vala in averting Arda from its terrible fate?  
Oromë laughed, a sound full of joy. _"That is for you to discover, child. It would only spoil your adventure, if I told you. _\- the Vala said -_Are you willing to try? Are you willing to reclaim your race's birthright and help me save Arda's future?" _he asked.

A part of Smaug's mind wanted to object again that his race was no more, but he hesitated.  
Maybe there would be. Maybe the Vala could bring them back, so that he would not be the last any longer, so that he would have something to care for, apart from his gold. And even if it was not possible, then at least he would have that second chance he had prayed for as he sank into the lake.  
Even better, he would have an adventure, a quest, a means to fix everything or at least try.  
"Yes! - he blurted out - Yes, I am!"  
_"Good. -_ the Vala rumbled _\- Then go, my child, and may you find what you have always yearned for." _he entreated.

Suddenly, Smaug found himself in his dying body once more. Pain and cold returned, assailing him with renewed ferocity, but the presence of the Vala was still with him, keeping the terror at bay.  
He felt something tug at the arrow embedded in his chest, slowly pulling it away from his heart. Smaug screamed in agony, but no water rushed into his maw. He could breathe, and he felt the punctured wall of his heart slowly knit back together.  
As the pain faded to manageable levels, he realized that he would not die. Not today.  
He would fly again and see another dawn. Many dawns more.  
Joy and relief flooded him, so intense that he felt like laughing and crying at the same time.  
Probably he did.  
He couldn't be really sure.  
Everything seemed so much of a dream that he didn't know whether he could trust his senses or not.

They told him he was lying on his side, on dry land, even as the tip of his tail was dangling into the strong current of a river. He smelled grass and water, and felt the warmth of a springtime sun on his scales, even if it was late autumn on Arda already. He tried to open his eyes and see to what sort of place the Vala had transported him to, but he felt too weak to manage. There would be time, he thought sleepily.  
He felt Oromë leave him, and attempted to speak, to say thank you, but his tongue felt thick and heavy and useless, and his voice refused to come forth.  
_"Don't tire yourself, child. - _the Vala whispered, laying a warm, impossibly large hand on his head to reassure him _\- Keep your strength. I will be watching over you. Always." _he promised.  
Smaug let himself be filled by the warmth of the sun and of the Vala's last words and drifted off into a deep, fevered sleep.


End file.
